book vii

. Qu. 6).

[556] The Romans reclined at table. They placed couches on three sides of the table and left the fourth open. The central couch or sofa (lectus medius) was the first place. The other sofas at the adjoining two sides were respectively lectus summus and imus.

[557] Nothing further seems to be known of him. The name Pella is probably corrupt. The consequence of his condemnation was Infamia, as to the meaning of which term: see Dict. of Greek and Roman Antiquities, Infamia. This interview between Brutus and Cassius forms one of the finest scenes in Shakespeare's play of Julius Cæsar.

[558] The reading here is probably corrupt. See the note of Sintenis.

[559] The ghost story is told also in the Life of Cæsar, c. 69.

[560] Cassius was one of the Romans who had embraced the doctrines of Epicurus, modified somewhat by the Roman character. Cicero in a letter to Cassius (_Ad Diversos_, xv. 16) rallies him about his opinions; and Cassius (xv. 19) in reply defends them. Cicero says to Cassius, that he hopes he will tell him whether it is in his power, as soon as he chooses to think of Cassius, to have his spectrum ([Greek: eidôlon]) present, before him, and whether, if he should begin to think of the island Britannia, the image (spectrum) of Britannia will fly to his mind.

Lucretius expounded the Epicurean doctrines in his poem De Rerum Natura. In his fourth book he treats of images (simulacra):

"Quæritur in primis quare quod quoique libido Venerit, extemplo mens cogitet ejus id ipsum. Anne voluntatem nostram simulacra tuentur, Et simulac volumus, nobis occurrit imago?"--iv. 781, &c.

The things on which the mind has been engaged in waking hours, recur as images during sleep:

"Et quo quisque fere studio defunctus adhæret, Aut quibus in rebus multum sumus ante moratei Atque in ea ratione fuit contenta magis mens, In somnis eadem plerumque videmur obire: Causidicei causas agere et componere leges, Induperatores pugnare ac proelia obire," &c.--iv. 963.

He has observed in a previous passage, that numerous images of things wander about in all directions, that they are of a subtile nature, and are easily united when they meet; they are of a much more subtile nature than the things which affect the sight, for they penetrate through the pores of bodies, and inwardly move the subtile nature of the mind. He then adds:

"Centauros itaque et Scyllarum membra videmus, Cerbereasque canum fauceis simulacraque eorum Quorum morte obita tellus amplectitur ossa."--iv. 734, &c.

The doctrine which Lucretius inculcated as to the deities, admitted their existence, but denied that they concerned themselves about mundane affairs; and they had nothing to do with the creation of the world. It is one of the main purposes of the poem to free men from all religious belief, and to show the misery and absurdities that it breeds.

A belief in dæmons would be inconsistent with such doctrines; and as to the gods, Cassius means to say, that though he did not believe in their existence, he almost wished that there were gods to aid their righteous cause.

As to the opinions of Cassius, compare the Life of Cæsar, c. 66.

[561] C. Norbanus Flaccus and L. Decidius Saxa, two legates of Antonius, who had been sent forward with eight legions, and had occupied Philippi. The town of Philippi lay near the mountain-range of Pangæus and Symbolum, which was the name of a place at which Pangæus joins another mountain, that stretches up into the interior. Symbolum was between Neapolis (new city) and Philippi. Neapolis was on the coast opposite to Thasus: Philippi was in the mountain region, and was built on a hill; west of it was a plain which extended to the Strymon (Appian, _Civil Wars_, iv. 1205; Dion Cassius. xlvii. 35). Philippi was originally called Krenides, or the Springs, then Datus, and lastly Philippi by King Philippus, of Macedonia, who fortified it. Appian's description of the position of Philippi is very clear.

[562] A lustration was a solemn ceremony of purification, which was performed on various occasions, and before a battle: see Livy, xxix. 47.

The omens which preceded the battle are recorded by Dion Cassius, xlvii. 49.

[563] M. Valerius Messala Corvinus, of a distinguished Roman family, was a son of Messala who was consul B.C. 53. After the battle of Philippi he attached himself to M. Antonius, whom he deserted to join Octavianus Cæsar. He fought on Cæsar's side at the battle of Actium (c. 53). He died somewhere between B.C. 3 and A.D. 3. Messala was a poet and an historian. His history of the Civil Wars, after the death of the Dictator Cæsar, was used by Plutarch.

[564] See the note of Sintenis, who proposes to read [Greek: keklêmenos] for [Greek: keklêmenon], to prevent any ambiguity, such as Kaltwasser discovered in the passage. It was the birthday of Cassius (Appian, _Civil Wars_, iv, 113).

[565] Plutarch here quotes the Memoirs of Cæsar. It is of no great importance who saw the dream, and perhaps there was no dream at all. Cæsar wished to have an excuse for being out of the way of danger. Dion Cassius (xlvii. 41) says that it was Cæsar's physician who had the dream, but he does not mention his name. See the notes of Reimarus.

[566] The true name may be Briges. The Briges were a Thracian tribe (Stephan. Byzant., [Greek: Briges]), who are mentioned by Herodotus (vii. 73). The Macedonian tradition was that they were the same as the Phrygians; that so long as they lived in Europe with the Macedonians they kept the name of Briges, and that when they passed over into Asia they were called Phryges.

[567] Drumann (_Geschichte Roms_, i. 516, n. 84) assumes that it is P. Volumnius Eutrapelus, a boon companion of Antonius. Several of Cicero's letters to him are extant (_Ad Div._ vii. 32, 33).

[568] Plutarch has handled the character of Brutus with partiality. He could not be ignorant of his love of money and of the oppressive manner in which he treated his unlucky creditors. Drumann (_Junii_, p. 20, &c.) has collected the evidence on this point. Though Brutus was an austere man and affected philosophy, his character is not free from the imputation of ingratitude to Cæsar, love of power, and avarice. He seems to have been one of those who deceive themselves into a belief of their own virtues, because they are free from other people's vices. The promise of plunder to his soldiers is not excusable because Antonius and Cæsar did worse than he intended to do. Plutarch here alludes to many of the Italians being driven out of their lands, which were given to the soldiers who had fought on the side of Cæsar and Antonius at Philippi. The misery that was occasioned by this measure was one of the chief evils of the Civil Wars. The slaughter in war chiefly affected the soldiers themselves, and if both armies had been destroyed, the people would only have been the better for it. The misery that arose from the ejection of the hard-working husbandmen reached to their wives and children. But a country which had a large army on foot which is no longer wanted, must either pay them out of taxes and plunder, or have a revolution. Necessity was the excuse for Cæsar and Antonius, and the same necessity would have been the excuse of Brutus, if he had been victorious. Defeat saved him from this necessity.

[569] The ships which were bringing aid to Cæsar from Brundusium under the command of Domitius Calvinus. They were met and defeated by L. Statius Marcus.

[570] Nothing seems to be known about him. Of course he is not the Volumnius mentioned in c. 45.

[571] See the Life of Cato the Younger, c. 73.

[572] See the Life of Antonius, c. 70.

[573] The verse is from the Medea of Euripides (v. 332), in which Medea Is cursing her faithless husband Jason. The educated Romans were familiar with the Greek dramatists, whom they often quoted. (Compare the Life of Pompeius, c. 78.) Appian says that Brutus intended to apply this line to Antonius (_Civil Wars_, iv. 130).

The other verse, which Volumnius forgot, was remembered by somebody else, if it be the verse of which Florus (iv. 7) has recorded the substance, "that virtue is not a reality, but a name." Dion Cassius (xlvii. 49, and the note of Reimarus) also has recorded two Greek verses which Brutus is said to have uttered; but he does not mention the verse which Plutarch cites. The substance of the two verses cited by Dion is this:

"Poor virtue, empty name, whom I have serv'd As a true mistress; thou art fortune's slave."

Volumnius might not choose to remember these verses, as Drumann suggests, in order to save the credit of his friend.

[574] See c. 11, and the Life of the younger Cato, c. 65, 73.

[575] Brutus was forty-three years of age when he died. Velleius (ii. 72) says that he was in his thirty-seventh year, which is a mistake.

The character of Brutus requires a special notice. It is easy enough to write a character of a man, but not easy to write a true one. Michelet (_Histoire de la Revolution Française_, ii. 545), speaking of the chief actors of the revolution in 1789. '90, '91, says: "We have rarely given a judgment entire, indistinct, no _portrait_ properly speaking; all, almost all, are unjust; resulting from a mean which is taken between this and that moment in a person's life, between the good and the bad, neutralising the one by the other, and making both false. We have judged the acts, as they present themselves, day by day, hour by hour. We have given a date to our judgments; and this has allowed us often to praise men, whom at a later time we shall have to blame. Criticism, forgetful and harsh, too often condemns beginnings which are laudable, having in view the end which it knows, of which it has a view beforehand. But we do not choose to know this end; whatever this man may do to-morrow, we note for his advantage the good which he does to-day: the end will come soon enough." This is the true method of writing history; this is the true method of judging men. Unfortunately we cannot trace the career of many individuals with that particularity of date and circumstance which would enable us to do justice. Plutarch does not draw characters in the mass in the modern way: he gives us both the good and the bad, in detail: but with little regard sometimes to time and circumstance. He has treated Brutus with partiality: he finds only one act in his life to condemn (chap. 46). The great condemnation of Brutus is, that acting in the name of virtue, he did not know what it was; that fighting for his country, he was fighting for a party; his Roman republic was a republic of aristocrats; his people was a fraction of the Roman citizens; he conceived no scheme for regenerating a whole nation: he engaged in a death struggle in which we can feel no sympathy. His name is an idle abused theme for rhetoric; and his portrait must be drawn, ill or well, that the world may be disabused.

Drumann (_Geschichte Roms_, Junii, p. 34) has carefully collected the acts of Brutus; and he has judged him severely, and, I think, truly.

Brutus had moderate abilities, with great industry and much learning: he had no merit as a general, but he had the courage of a soldier, he had the reputation of virtue, and he was free from many of the vices of his contemporaries; he was sober and temperate. Of enlarged political views he had none; there is not a sign of his being superior in this respect to the mass of his contemporaries. When the Civil War broke out, he joined Pompeius, though Pompeius had murdered his father. If he gave up his private enmity, as Plutarch says, for what he believed to be the better cause, the sacrifice was honourable: if there were other motives, and I believe there were, his choice of his party does him no credit. His conspiracy against Cæsar can only be justified by those, if there are such, who think that a usurper ought to be got rid of in any way. But if a man is to be murdered, one does not expect those to take a part in the act who, after being enemies have received favours from him, and professed to be friends. The murderers should at least be a man's declared enemies who have just wrongs to avenge. Though Brutus was dissatisfied with things under Cæsar, he was not the first mover in the conspiracy. He was worked upon by others, who knew that his character and personal relation to Cæsar would in a measure sanctify the deed; and by their persuasion, not his own resolve, he became an assassin in the name of freedom, which meant the triumph of his party, and in the name of virtue, which meant nothing.

The act was bad in Brutus as an act of treachery; and it was bad as an act of policy. It failed in its object--the success of a party, because the death of Cæsar was not enough; other victims were necessary, and Brutus would not have them. He put himself at the head of a plot, in which there was no plan: he dreamed of success and forgot the means. He mistook the circumstances of the times and the character of the men. His conduct after the murder was feeble and uncertain; and it was also as illegal as the usurpation of Cæsar. "He left Rome as prætor without the permission of the Senate; he took possession of a province which, even according to Cicero's testimony, had been assigned to another; he arbitrarily passed beyond the boundaries of his province, and set his effigy on the coins." (Drumann.) He attacked the Bessi in order to give his soldiers booty, and he plundered Asia to get money for the conflict against Cæsar and Antonius, for the mastery of Rome and Italy. The means that he had at his disposal show that he robbed without measure and without mercy; and never was greater tyranny exercised over helpless people in the name of liberty than the wretched inhabitants of Asia experienced from Brutus the "Liberator" and Cassius "the last of the Romans." But all these great resources were thrown away in an ill-conceived and worse executed campaign.

Temperance, industry, and unwillingness to shed blood are noble qualities in a citizen and a soldier; and Brutus possessed them. But great wealth gotten by ill means is an eternal reproach; and the trade of money-lending, carried on in the names of others, with unrelenting greediness, is both avarice and hypocrisy. Cicero, the friend of Brutus, is the witness for his wealth, and for his unworthy means to increase it.

Reflecting men in all ages have a philosophy. With the educated Greeks and Romans, philosophy was religion. The vulgar belief, under whatever name it may be, is never the belief of those who have leisure for reflection. The vulgar rich and vulgar poor are immersed in sense: the man of reflection strives to emerge from it. To him the things which are seen are only the shadows of the unseen; forms without substance, but the evidence of the substantial: "for the invisible things of God from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made" (Epistle to the Romans, i. 20). Brutus was from his youth up a student of philosophy and well versed in the systems of the Greeks. Untiring industry and a strong memory had stored his mind with the thoughts of others, but he had not capacity enough to draw profit from his intellectual as he did from his golden treasures. His mind was a barren field on which no culture could raise an abundant crop. His wisdom was the thoughts of others, and he had ever ready in his mouth something that others had said. But to utter other men's wisdom is not enough: a man must make it his own by the labour of independent thought. Philosophy and superstition were blended in his mind, and they formed a chaos in his bewildered brain, as they always will do; and the product is Gorgons and Hydras and Chimeras dire. In the still of night phantoms floated before his wasted strength and wakeful eyes; perhaps the vision of him, the generous and the brave, who had saved the life of an enemy in battle, and fell by his hand in the midst of peace. Conscience was his tormentor, for truth was stronger than the illusions of self-imputed virtue. Though Brutus had condemned Cato's death, he died by his own hand, not with the stubborn resolve of Cato, who would not yield to a usurper, but merely to escape from his enemies. A Roman might be pardoned for not choosing to become the prisoner of a Roman, but his grave should have been the battlefield, and the instrument should have been the hands of those who were fighting against the cause which he proclaimed to be righteous and just. Cato's son bettered his father's example: he died on the plain of Philippi by the sword of the enemy. Brutus died without belief in the existence of that virtue which he had affected to follow: the triumph of a wrongful cause, as he conceived it, was a proof that virtue was an empty name. He forgot the transitory nature of all individual existences, and thought that justice perished with him. But a true philosopher does not make himself a central point, nor his own misfortunes a final catastrophe. He looks both backwards and forwards, to the past and the future, and views himself as a small link in the great chain of events which holds all things together. Brutus died in despair, with the courage, but not with the faith, of a martyr.

When men talk of tyranny and rise against it, the name of Brutus is invoked; a mere name and nothing else. What single act is there in the man's life which promised the regeneration of his country and the freedom of mankind? Like other Romans, he only thought of maintaining the supremacy of Rome; his ideas were no larger than theirs; he had no sympathy for those whom Rome governed and oppressed. For his country, he had nothing to propose; its worn-out political constitution he would maintain, not amend; indeed, amendment was impossible. Probably he dreaded anarchy and the dissolution of social order, for that would have released his creditors and confiscated his valuable estates. But Cæsar's usurpation was not an anarchy: it was a monarchy, a sole rule; and Brutus, who was ambitious, could not endure that. It may be said that if the political views of Brutus were narrow, he was only like most of his countrymen. But why then is he exalted, and why is his name invoked? What single title had he to distinction except what Cæsar gave him? A man of unknown family, the son of a woman whom Cæsar had debauched, pardoned after fighting against his mother's lover, raised by him to the prætorship, and honoured with Cæsar's friendship--he has owed his distinction to nothing else than murdering the man whose genius he could not appreciate, but whose favours he had enjoyed.

His spurious philosophy has helped to save him from the detestation which is his due; but the false garb should be stripped off. A stoic, an ascetic, and nothing more, is a mere negation. The active virtues of Brutus are not recorded. If he sometimes did an act of public justice (c. 35), it was not more than many other Romans have done. To reduce this philosopher to his true level, we ask, what did he say or do that showed a sympathy with all mankind? Where is the evidence that he had the feeling of justice which alone can regenerate a nation? But it may be said, why seek in a Roman of his age what we cannot expect to find? Why then elevate him above the rest of his age and consecrate his name? Why make a hero of him who murdered his benefactor, and then ran away from the city which he was to save--from we know not what? And why make a virtuous man of him who was only austere, and who did not believe in the virtues that he professed? As to statesmanship, nobody has claimed that for him yet.

"The deputy of Arras, poor, and despised even by his own party, won the confidence of the people by their belief in his probity: and he deserved it. Fanatical and narrow-minded, he was still a man of principles. Untiring industry, unshaken faith, and poverty, the guarantee of his probity, raised him slowly to distinction, and enabled him to destroy all who stood between him and the realisation of an unbending theory. Though he had sacrificed the lives of others, he scorned to save his own by doing what would have contradicted his principles: he respected the form of legality, when its substance no longer existed, and refused to sanction force when it would have been used for his own protection" (Lamartine, _Histoire des Girondins_, liv. 61, ix.). A great and memorable example of crime, of fanaticism, and of virtue; of a career commenced in the cause of justice, in truth, faith and sincerity; of a man who did believe in virtue, and yet spoiled the cause in which he embarked, and left behind him a name for universal execration.

Treachery at home, enmity abroad, and misconduct in its own leaders, made the French Revolution result in anarchy, and then in a tyranny. The Civil Wars of Rome resulted in a monarchy, and there was nothing else in which they could end. The Roman monarchy or the Empire was a natural birth. The French Empire was an abortion. The Roman Empire was the proper growth of the ages that had preceded it: they could produce nothing better. In a few years after the battle of Philippi, Cæsar Octavianus got rid of his partner Antonius; and under the administration of Augustus the world enjoyed comparative peace, and the Roman Empire was established and consolidated. The genius of Augustus, often ill appreciated, is demonstrated by the results of his policy. He restored order to a distracted state and transmitted his power to his successors. The huge fabric of Roman greatness resting on its ancient foundations, only crumbled beneath the assaults that time and new circumstances make against all political institutions.

[576] Velleius (ii. 71, quoted by Kaltwasser) states that some of the

## partisans of Brutus and Cassius wished Messala to put himself at the

head of their party, but he declined to try the fortune of another contest.

[577] Compare the Life of Antonius, c. 22. Appian (_Civil Wars_, iv. 135) makes the same statement as Plutarch about the body of Brutus. It is not inconsistent with this that his head was cut off in order to be sent to Rome and thrown at the feet of Cæsar's statue, as Suetonius says (Sueton. _August._ 13). Dion Cassius adds (xlvii. 49) that in the passage from Dyrrachium a storm came on and the head was thrown into the sea.

[578] Nikolaus of Damascus, a Peripatetic philosopher, and a friend of Augustus, wrote a universal history in Greek, in one hundred and forty-four books, of which a few fragments remain. There is also a fragment of his Life of Augustus. The best edition is that of J.C. Orelli, Leipzig, 1804, 8vo.; to which a supplement was published in 1811.

[579] The work of Valerius Maximus is dedicated to the Emperor Tiberius. The death of Porcia is mentioned in lib. iv. c. 6, 5. Appian (_Civil Wars_, iv. 136) and Dion Cassius (xlvii. 49) give the same account of Porcia's death.

[580] Plutarch here evidently doubts the genuineness of the letter attributed to Brutus. The life of Brutus offered good materials for the falsifiers of history, who worked with them after rhetorical fashion. There are a few letters in the collection of Cicero which are genuine, but the single book of letters to Brutus (M. Tullii Ciceronis Epistolorum ad Brutum Liber Singularis) is condemned as a forgery by the best critics. It contains letters of Cicero to Brutus, and of Brutus to Cicero; and a letter of Brutus to Atticus. Genuine letters of Brutus, written day by day, like those of Cicero, would have formed the best materials from which we might judge him.

[581] A despatch rolled in a peculiar manner. See vol. ii. Life of Lysander, ch. 19.

[582] The battle of Kunaxa was fought on the 7th of September 401 B.C.

[583] The title of a great Persian officer of State.

[584] Egypt revolted from Persia B.C. 358. See vol. iii. Life of Agesilaus, ad. fin.

[585] A people of Media on the Caspian Sea.

[586] See Grote on Epameinondas. "The muscularity, purchased by excessive nutriment, of the Boeotian pugilist." (_Hist. of Greece_,